Relapse
by Bibliotecaria.D
Summary: One of Tarn's unresolved relationships comes back to bite him on the way to confront Deathsaurus.
**Title:** Relapse

 **Warning:** Dubcon fantasies, injuries and violence, addictions and bad relationships, explicit hatesex.

 **Rating:** R

 **Continuity:** IDW, a distant sequel to _Welcome to the Gun Show ._

 **Characters:** Tarn, D.J.D. (Helex, Nickel, Tesarus, Kaon, Vos, the Pet), Overlord.

 **Disclaimer:** The theatre doesn't own the script or actors.

 **Motivation (Prompt):** Commission from Elapuse, for Shokveyv!

* * *

 **[* * * * *]**  
 **One of Tarn's unresolved relationships comes back to bite him on the way to confront Deathsaurus.**

**[* * * * *]**

* * *

This did not bode well.

Tearing his optics away from the screen, Tarn cast a wild glance around the bridge. Nobody was around, everyone off-duty but him. Based on their estimated arrival time, Tarn had arranged the duty schedule so his crew would be firmly at the start of their on-duty cycle mentally and physically when they faced Deathsaurus. That left one mech on watch during the off-cycle, and due to twitchiness leftover from supercharging on nuke, it was his turn.

Fortunate, since in his opinion this might crash team morale. First Lord Megatron - _Megatron_ had defected, and then the traitorous piece of slag had joined an Autobot ship the Justice Division _had destroyed_ . What a slap to their confidence on top of a blow to the Cause! When the universe set out to crush them, it didn't do it halfway.

Every source they'd contacted verified the truth of that short message at the end of _Toward Peace_ . Additional vids of the trial were available to download, along with screenshots everywhere on the Decepticon network of Megatron wearing that accursed red insignia, and throughout that blatant impossibility wandered a bunch of Autobots that should already have been dead. Tarn had always believed Lord Me - _Megatron's_ teachings on religion, that it was nothing but a control method for the masses, but he'd never had more concrete proof that there was a god out there. The last week had been scripted by a spiteful deity who had it out for the Justice Division.

And that out there? That was proof positive. As much as it pained him to reverse his stance, Tarn had to admit that he'd been wrong about Primus. The fragger absolutely existed, and He was _laughing_ at them.

The console edge creaked as Tarn's hands clenched, but he tore away from gaping at the screen in order to take a circuit of the bridge, transforming twice in quick succession. His mind raced, hurriedly rearranging facts. He owed _so_ many List offenders a belated apology for religious persecution.

Wait, no, he didn't have time to get sidetracked thinking about past actions. Forward thinking only. No regrets allowed. He had to calm down.

Unfolding out of altmode, Tarn brought his hands together, palms turned upward, and took a deep, bracing breath. In through the mouth, out through the vents, and he pushed down with his hands as if forcing the doubt away. Okay, so Primus was real and Overlord was still alive. Fine. New information happened. That made it no less useful for planning purposes. He could use this. He simply had to remain objective while analyzing the new situation.

The Autobots and Megatron were temporarily out of his reach until the plan with Deathsaurus went forward, but out of nowhere appeared Overlord. Primus evidently felt the D.J.D. needed another blow to their confidence. Or perhaps this was some kind of sign. Gods granted the prayers of their favored believers, right? Primus had never intervened for any of the poor sparks on the List who'd screamed for His intervention, but paint Tarn a believer and bring on the miracles.

He took another deep breath and nodded to himself. That was a much more optimistic take on current events. He liked that idea better. Overlord was a divine gift. He'd been placed in Tarn's path like a neatly packaged information packet on just what the frag was going on. This was an opportunity to learn how exactly an entire ship of dead Autobots was walking around alive and well.

Except that Tarn couldn't let his crew find out Overlord had survived. They'd been so psyched after his execution. They'd taken a group selfie in front of the decapitated corpse and impaled Overlord's head in a display case awaiting delivery to Megatron himself. Which wasn't going to happen now for obvious reasons, but it'd upset them if the traitor they'd gone through so much trouble to track down and execute had somehow survived. Tarn had already needed to give a motivational speech to boost their flagging drive when they'd seen the Autobots were alive, and those were just _Autobots_ . Who cared about Autobots?

Checking Overlord off the List had been a Big Deal, however. He'd been the D.J.D.'s top priority for years. Tarn could picture how disappointed his unit would be to see him alive. Kaon would do the hollow-optic Stare of Sad, slumped at the communications console picking at the keys, and Tesarus would descend into depressed, monosyllabic mumbles. Vos would likely transform and sulk in a corner. Helex would avoid Tarn's optics. Even the Pet would whine and cringe, pawing at Tarn's knees while gazing up at him with begging optics full of crusted slime. They'd all fear they had disappointed him.

Nickel would probably tell him right to his mask that he'd fragged up, but that was Nickel. Nickel was convinced that if she wanted something done right she had to do it herself because they were guaranteed to screw it up somehow.

He might be looking at evidence that she was correct, but Tarn refused to believe his team had inexplicably screwed up total decapitation. How could they have gotten that wrong? Impossible. There was an explanation for Overlord being out there, and he'd soon find out what exactly it was - _without_ damaging the delicate morale of the unit. He could do it on his own, quick and quiet. He'd get Overlord into the brig and conduct an interrogation on his own. No one would be the wiser.

Mind made up, Tarn stood up out of altmode in front of the navigation console. It bleeped complaint as he exited autopilot. "Please return to advised route," the program said in a pleasant voice. "Please return. Please return."

He set a route to detour toward the emergency beacon on the far edge of the screen. The program continued to protest. The distant speck pinged a weak transmission that spoke of grave bodily harm. He'd have to grind in how Overlord had been found helplessly drifting through space awaiting rescue.

"Stand by; recalculating route," the navigation program said. "Recalculating…recalculating…please stand by...recalculating...turn immediately."

Keys bleeped as he scrambled to make the turn, kneejerk reflex slapping his hands down on the console, but at the last second Tarn checked himself. Instead, he took a look the proposed route.

Nice try, Primus. According to the dotted line, the ship would return to the programmed route by flying directly through the nearest star. "There is a god, and He's trying to kill us," Tarn muttered, typing in course corrections. No fiery death, please and thank you.

"Stand by; recalculating route."

"You do that." He double-checked that the ship would intersect with Overlord's floating body, then left the bridge. Regulations forbade him from leaving the bridge while on watch, but with any luck, his sleeping crew would never know about the breach in protocol. He'd nab Overlord as the ship swung by, stuff him in the brig, and be back on the bridge with no one the wiser. Once Helex took the watch, Tarn could spend the next two shifts working the prisoner over for answers.

A good plan in theory, but Tarn had failed to account for just how much Overlord weighed. Look, he was a strong mech for a tankformer, but an ununtrium-coated endoskeleton weighed a disproportionate amount, and Overlord was a large mech to begin with. "You're missing an entire arm. And a shoulder. And half your chest," Tarn muttered as he shifted the fat-aft down the hall one jerking pull at a time. "It doesn't seem _enk_ physically possible that you can still weigh this slagging much. Leave off eating the compressed elements. Osmium is not _unh!_ a snack food." Another heave went nowhere, despite Tarn setting his feet to pit his full weight against Overlord's mass.

The mech managed to be a thorn in his side even while unconscious. In the end, Tarn hitched a towline to the gigantic lump of scrap metal and transformed to haul Overlord out of the airlock. The fragger's broken armor dragged thick furrows into the hallway floors. Tarn didn't know how he'd explain those away. Hopefully nobody would notice.

He'd never admit to what hauling Overlord like a sack of scrap was doing to him. Seeing him vulnerable revved Tarn's engines to begin with, but the injuries pushed him beyond vaguely hot into just plain obscene. Tarn's temperature gauge bobbed upward every time another body part dropped off. Overlord's whole spark chamber dangled out the side of his torso, saved from whatever had shattered the rest of his body by its impenetrable ununtrium coating. Wires sparked. Slushy, half-frozen fluids dripped messily out of open tubes as frosted systems thawed. Overlord's head lolled, optics offline, and the towline tied around his waist folded him almost double. There was no chance he was pretending. That was the true limp, lax-limbed unconsciousness of stasis lock.

He was at Tarn's mercy.

It shouldn't have been erotic, but the heat building in Tarn's interfacing equipment disagreed vehemently. He'd never seen Overlord so damaged, not even after the worst battles on the frontlines, and it turned his fans like _whoa_ .

Tarn transformed inside the brig, shut off his optics, and stepped back to take a deep, cooling breath. He needed to keep his distance. He was getting too involved in this as...more than it was. More than the interrogation of a traitor to the Empire. Becoming aroused from holding Overlord helpless under his heel was a personal weakness, one he needed to set aside. This needed to be approached as an actual interrogation, not a fetish scenario.

His engine turned over at the thought, and Tarn hastily set about readying a pulley for his return. Getting Overlord up onto the table by himself would take too long for his limited timeframe right now. Tarn settled for kicking the unconscious mech into the closest cell and chaining him up. Chains should keep him contained, considering the amount of damage he'd sustained, but Tarn doubted Overlord would wake up before he returned. After that, it wouldn't matter if Overlord was awake. The table's built-in restraints were stronger than one wounded mech, even if that mech was a loadbearer.

Shamefully, Tarn was looking forward to strapping him down a little too much to pretend it was strictly professional interest. Tied up was a good look on Overlord. Wounded and bound flat, legs open and spark chamber undefended, his usual insolence absent in emergency stasis, he looked ripe for the taking. Power swelled in Tarn's gut as he stood over his prisoner. That expressive face was slack, more than Tarn had ever seen it even in recharge. Half of Overlord's helm had been blown away, and the plush lips were scorched but parted suggestively, just begging to be taken.

Throat dry, Tarn took a step back. Willpower! The Cause! Answers! No molesting a prisoner for personal reasons! The impulse to touch and taste was way out of line, here and now. Overlord was a prisoner, not one of Megatron's Warrior Elite. Tarn wasn't interfacing him regularly to blow off steam. That ship had sailed. The days of them competing to see who could rile up the other fastest were long past.

He was the leader of the Decepticon Justice Division. Overlord was a confirmed traitor. An already-executed traitor crossed off the List, true, but still a traitor. Continuing their affair would be distasteful as well as foolish.

Although interfacing Overlord had been as addicting as transformation, once upon a foolish lapse in judgment, and Tarn swallowed against a surge of memory. Lust had led him to lower his standards. He'd fixated. He remembered that, and the pleasure tangled throughout those memories rushed straight to his interfacing equipment. As always, it knotted in his tanks like a physical thing, holding him fast, and sensor ghosts of overload on overload sent threads of pleasure across his spark.

It had felt so good, fragging Overlord. It had been misplaced desire, wanting the arrogant piece of waste metal for all the wrong reasons, but that had been then. Now his mind lit upon something he'd rather have not thought about, shoving it to the forefront of his thoughts: all the reasons Tarn had sought to destroy Overlord prior to Megatron's defection to the Autobots made him _that much more_ desirable now. The treasonous defiance that had made him feel guilty at the same time it slicked his thighs now fueled a deeper burn in his spark. Overlord had hated and longed for Megatron. He'd defied the leader of the Empire. He'd laughed as he dared Megatron to punish him.

Combined with Overlord's current vulnerable state, and temptation had Tarn panting short, hot breaths out through his vents. Watching Megatron pound Overlord into the ground had always left Tarn's systems running scorching hot. Now he was the one in power. The unconscious mech lay at his feet. He wanted to kneel astride that missing shoulder, grind his knee into the open wound, and push apart those lush lips. Claiming that mouth would be effortless. Overlord's jaw already yawned half-open, relaxed by stasis lock.

Pleasure shivered down Tarn's back struts at the mere thought of taking Overlord's mouth while he was unconscious. In stasis lock, Overlord's domineering personality was absent, stripped away into limp compliance. Tarn had pushed him to his knees in the past, but Overlord had cooperated with it. He'd sneered disdain at Tarn even while sucking him off. Overlord's attitude had made it clear that their fights weren't evenly matched, and he'd only _let_ Tarn order him to do what he'd already wanted. Tarn had never _won_ .

Not so this time. This time, Tarn was the victor. Knocked out, Overlord's face softened, lips drooping into a pouty invitation. If Tarn eased Overlord's jaw open, he could push into the waiting heat. He could thrust his spike past those thick lips and take what he wanted. None of Overlord's typical backtalk or the threat of teeth would interfere. Overlord had no choice. Tarn could take his pleasure of him, his pelvic span bruising those absurd lips as he slammed into wet heat over and over again. It would be a brute-force demonstration of total control. Tarn was commander here, and he could use the prisoner for whatever perverse pleasure he wished.

Helex's voice shattered the trance he'd fallen into. *" _warrrzt_ Tarn? Hello?"*

"What?! Ah." Tarn reset his vox box, lowering his voice to a more appropriate volume. "I mean, what is it?"

It took Helex a second to respond, as angry shouting from Tarn generally ended in sparks exploding. He sounded wary when he came back on the channel. *"Uh, sorry if I'm interrupting something, but aren't you supposed to be on-shift?"*

A chill shot through his tanks. "I am," Tarn said slowly. He checked the time and winced. Oops.

*"Oh. But, uh. You're not…here?"*

Frag, he'd been sunk in fantasies for so long Helex had arrived for the next shift. "Something came up that required my attention," Tarn temporized, exiting the brig at a brisk pace. He didn't like leaving Overlord unguarded, but the mech certainly wasn't going anywhere.

*"You're supposed to call one of us - "*

Tarn transformed, cannons whining as they came online. "Do not tell me what I am supposed to do, Helex." The whine of active weapons transmitted over the growl of his engine, a clear indication of his mood, but he relented after a moment. "I didn't wish to disturb your rest over a minor matter. It's taken care of, I'm on my way back, and I expect to hear no more of it." It was important that his crew remain ignorant of his 'guest.'

Helex's end of the connection crackled quietly. He sounded subdued when he spoke. *"Got it. I just, uh."*

Mega - _Primus_ spare him from insubordinate underlings. Why did his unit keep questioning his orders? Did they trust him so little?

He squashed the thought that they were right to inquire into a break in protocol. "What is it?"

*"The navigation program's recalculated our route, and I was wondering if we were supposed to be heading back to Messatine. Did we forget to stock up on nuke before we left, or..?"* Helex let the question hang.

Tarn transformed so he could pinch his mask between the optics. Exasperation flooded his lines. Glitch or god, they really needed to fix that blasted program. "Please correct course. We're still headed for the Warworld."

*"Okay. I just didn't, y'know, **know** , so..."*

"No, no, that's quite alright. I understand. Good catch." In fact, that was a good enough excuse for his purposes. He had to make a stop in the ship's medibay before the rest of the crew rebooted. "I need to check on a cause of the error," he said, smoothly rephrasing actual events into a not-quite-lie. "You have the watch."

He could almost hear how badly he startled Helex. *"What, really? But - right."* The smelterbot scrambled to cover his surprise. Tarn was a stickler for proper protocol. Breaking procedure for passing the bridge watch was out of character for him. "Uh, I have the watch."

"Good. I don't wish to be disturbed for the shift," Tarn ordered and signed off the commline before Helex could reply. There, that would leave him the rest of the shift to work. He took a left at the next intersection, heading for the medibay.

Meanwhile on the bridge, Helex frowned at nothing. It wasn't right. None of this was right. Tarn didn't _do_ stuff like blow off the shift change.

"Recalculating," the navigation console chirped, and his frown transferred to it.

"Show me the previous course," he told it, but the line it popped up on the screen curved around toward Messatine. "Prior course. Before that. What's that? No." A weird zigzag line traced the ship's route, and he thumbed the undo button, searching for the course they'd been on. How had the ship gone so far off-course with Tarn minding the helm?

Unless Tarn had been the one to program the course in. Which it seemed he had. Helex drummed his fingers on the console, optics narrow as he studied the weird turn. It looked as though Tarn had taken the ship off-course to investigate something. The navigation program had auto-resumed their course, which was where it had gone wrong, turning back toward Messatine. Since Tarn had set the course but hadn't been here to correct the change, it was likely why he'd left the bridge. What had it been?

Well, Helex was no Kaon, but he knew his way around the _Peaceful Tyranny_ 's systems. Time to poke around in the automated recordings. Maybe something interesting had shown up on sensors in the last shift, and if not, he'd ask Kaon to pull up the internal security footage later.

Later came early when the Pet pulled Kaon onto the bridge ten minutes on. Helex heard the excited scrabble of paws on the deck long before they arrived.

"Something's got it excited, sorry," Kaon sighed as the sparkeater bounded over to Helex. "It's been strangling itself on its chain since I got up. Do you mind?"

"S'okay," Helex said absently, most of his attention still on the console screens. Slobber and teeth weren't enough to overwhelm someone his size. Besides, he had an extra set of arms to keep the mutt away from his throat. "Have you seen Tarn?"

Kaon blinked, shutters closing over empty optic sockets.

"You know what I mean."

A grin crossed the electrical mech's face. "Nope, haven't seen him. Why, what's he doing?"

"I'm not sure."

Kaon cocked his head at the strange note in Helex's voice. The shutters under his empty sockets tensed. "You sound as though you're concerned. Should I be as well?"

They were all tiptoeing on landmines around Tarn. None of them had taken Megatron's defection well, but Tarn had been devastated. He'd kept up a stoic front, to the point where it'd taken Nickel screaming at the infusion chamber before the rest of the D.J.D. realized just how concerned they should be about him. Now that they knew, they weren't sure what to do about it. An intervention would only work if they knew what exactly he was doing. Tarn played his cards close to his chest normally, but right now only he knew what the plan was. The only thing the rest of them knew was that they were finally making an attack on Deathsaurus.

Their main concern was that this wasn't an attack intended to win. Tarn might be planning suicide by List. It wouldn't be the first time a Decepticon chose death by action over surrender, but this was their boss. He was kind of their responsibility.

So Helex had no problem admitting, "I don't know, but I think he's hiding something from us."

He didn't even have to bring up checking the security cameras. Kaon slid into communication console's seat, flexing the recharge stiffness out of his fingers. "Right," he said, "because hiding things from us ends **so** well."

Yeah, no, the Pharma Incident had been the silent monolith in the middle of home base. That wasn't happening again. They were going to find out what Tarn was up to before it became an obstacle. Perhaps this time they'd find a way to meddle without stinging his ego.

By the time Vos and Tesarus arrived on the bridge, Helex and Kaon had rewound the security footage enough to locate what hallway Tarn was in. They were watching him revealed some truly concerning behavior. Suicidal, stupid, criminally thoughtless behavior. Nobody did that without a death wish.

"This is bad," Helex muttered, and Kaon nodded. On the screen, Tarn slipped like a fugitive through the halls.

Vos watched the screen for a moment. What was happening?

Tesarus winced as he saw it. "Aw, no, that's not good. Has he rocked off his treads?"

"Disrespect," Kaon and Helex snapped, but they lacked authority to slap demerits on his record. He made a face at their backs.

Maybe Tarn hadn't gone totally mad, Vos suggested. Maybe he'd just developed a sudden, urgent need to do some home dentistry. Without telling Nickel about it. And borrowing her tools, despite the dire threats flung at them the last time they'd taken equipment from her medibay. Torturing a List mech was _not_ sufficient reason to take her tools.

"Noooo," they groaned as one as Tarn went into the brig. What was the _one thing_ Nickel had ordered them to never do? Was it that? It was that.

Vos conceded that apparently he'd been wrong. Tarn had gone totally mad.

In the interest of keeping Tarn's head above the surface of what would be a truly monumental pile of Health & Safety filework, Helex asked, "All in favor of not telling Nickel where her tools went?"

"Aye."

"Aye."

Vos nodded agreement. Tattling would reduce Tarn's lifespan by the length of at least one nagging lecture, a much louder reaming, and a formal written warning on top of every administrative form, evaluation, and report Nickel would make him fill out in triplicate. Although Vos was curious. Tapping at the screen, he asked what Tarn was doing hiding away in the brig. Could he be putting himself through some form of penance?

"That does seem like something he'd do," Kaon mused as he set the feed from the camera outside the brig to rewind. "But what kind of penance involves oral hygiene?"

"I'm glad you asked, nuke-heads," barked a familiar voice from the door of the bridge, and gear-deep, ingrained terror had the feared Decepticon Justice Division nearly climbing on top of the bridge consoles to escape. Someone yelped. It wasn't the Pet. Nickel glared. "Where are my picks?"

Six pairs of hands and the Pet's nose immediately pointed at the screen. Betrayal in surround-sound, "He did it!"

Narrow optics turned toward the guilty party. Nickel's meter flicked in surprised puzzlement as her optics widened. "When did we take on a prisoner?"

"What?" They turned to look, but the screen showed nothing moving but the timestamp.

"Hold on, let me…" Kaon bent over the console to stop and then fast forward the security footage. Nickel had seen something. A prisoner, evidently.

This time, they all saw. The footage slowed to regular playback, and Tarn chugged into view hauling a prisoner. One they all knew, and something between disappointment and numb resignation welled up in them as they watched.

"Ohhh frag," someone said quietly.

"That looks like Overlord," Nickel said thoughtfully. She had skated up closer to the screen to join the group.

"Uh-huh."

"I have his T-cog in my spare parts bin."

"You do?"

"Yep. Tarn brought it back for me."

"Huh."

"Pretty sure you guys brought back his head, too."

"Yeah."

She squinted at the screen, meter flicking as she catalogued the unconscious mech's injuries. "Emergency stasis lock. He's bad off, but there's plenty there I could fix on him. But I'm noticing there's a head still in place. Anybody going to fill me in how **that** happened?"

Nickel looked at them expectantly, but what could they say? They stared rather despondently as Tarn hauled Overlord into the brig. They'd executed Overlord, yet there he was. It shouldn't have been a surprise, what with all those Autobots they'd killed running around as alive as ever, but it was somehow more depressing to see a List traitor un-executed.

Which Tarn understood full well, hence his attempt to keep his unit from finding out. Unfortunately, the best intentions in the universe couldn't stand up against nosy, concerned underlings. That would come back to bite him in the aft eventually, but it would be sometime after he swiped a handful of tools from Nickel's jealously guarded, meticulously organized medibay. He was going to be in so much trouble when she noticed they were gone. Guilt and apprehension dogged him through the halls as he sneaked back to the brig.

With any luck, the interrogation would yield information before she tracked him down, and he'd be able to hide behind his accomplishment. He could hand her tools back to her as a dignified, successful commander instead of a delinquent. They were a means to an end. They were necessary.

Please don't schedule him for another reservoir flush.

Prying information out of Overlord required the mech to be conscious, however, and Tarn was fresh out of luck on that front. Nothing he tried brought the fragger out of stasis lock. True, some of what he tried had been accidental, like dropping Overlord while using the pulley system to lift him onto the table, but it still didn't work. Overlord stayed unconscious, crumpled upside-down against the table.

It did put Tarn in a better mood. The arrogant cogsucker had landed square on his helm, long limbs tumbled in disarray.

On the heels of humor pulsed arousal, jerking Tarn's wires tense like a puppeteer twitching the strings, and Tarn licked his lips. Looking down at the frankly indecent pose made him feel powerful. In control. It wasn't a feeling he'd had amidst everything happening lately. It felt _good_ .

Overlord's neck bent at a sharp angle, his knees splayed wide apart, and the blunt force of lust hit Tarn in the gut. Molten heat splashed out from his interface systems like liquid fire consuming his endoskeleton a strut at a time. Prodding the heap of limp mech earned no response, and Tarn's optics traveled slowly over him, drinking in the invitation written across Overlord's plating. Dark optics, stasis lock, injuries, burnt paint, and smeared fluids told him he could do whatever he wanted right now.

Seeing Overlord broken and vulnerable did things to him he refused to acknowledge. It probably said something about him that having his former lover helpless at his feet turned him on, but at the same time, it was pretty much a guaranteed thing that Overlord would be into it.

Hmm. That said a lot about the two of them.

His ethics didn't put up more than feeble resistance as Tarn knelt, one knee set roughly on the exposed spark chamber and the other on Overlord's remaining hand. Metal creaked protest as he pulled Overlord's aft forward, forcing an arch into cold-stiff backstrusts. Awake, it likely would have been uncomfortable, if not painful. Brute power frametypes tended to come up short on flexibility, and Tarn was balancing all of Overlord's weight on the huge injury where his shoulder had been. Smiling, Tarn bore down on him, bending him in half to put him at the perfect height.

The lack of security cameras in the brig hadn't mattered before this, but Tarn had reason to be grateful for it now. Nobody saw him thrust his spike panel against Overlord's valve hatch, paint scratching as he ground them together. His hands curled around thick thighs, digging in to yank Overlord down to meet him. Metal thudded loudly.

This wasn't fragging. It was a parody; a crude, rutting grind smashing Tarn's spike head against its cover every time he bucked up, rolling his hips for the sweet pressure, for the fantasy of popping his panel, ripping open Overlord's valve hatch, and taking the raw damage in a frenzy of hard thrusts. Optics dim, he tossed his head back, sneering under his mask as he savored the short jolts of pressure kissing his spike head every time he slammed up, hips jerking in paint-scratching circles mimicking what he really wanted to do.

Locked behind its panel, his spike sent shallow shocks of pleasure through him from engine to spark, and oh yes, oh _yes_ , it was better than he remembered. Refusing to actually indulge made it richer. The pleasure came from deeper inside him, more muted than sliding his spike into a tight valve but strong. He _felt_ strong. Who was in charge this time? Each clang was testimony to his self-control. He had the power, here. He _could_ give in to the addictive pleasure of fragging Overlord, but he _didn't_ . Things had changed between them, and this proved it.

When he finally overloaded, pleasure swelled up from the base of his spike in a low, building bliss. His hips jolted once, twice, and then he hunched over, groaning through the long wave of pleasure that throbbed hard enough to blank his mind. It spilled down his backstruts, liquid heat one second and hollow release collapsing inward the next. He sucked in a shuddering breath right before the rolling shiver of an aftershock stuttered his fans, and Tarn reveled as circuit breakers reset, stressed systems relaxing back to normal settings. His fans spun a ragged rhythm as he caught his breath.

New dents on Overlord's valve cover stood out against the mech's battered paint. They weren't quite as satisfyingly severe as the rest of his wounds, but leaving a mark on him felt good. Paint transfers and surface damage would have to do…for now. Tarn stood up, slapping Overlord's aft just because he could, and Overlord slumped sideways like an overbalanced doll.

Yet he still didn't wake up.

After Overlord was finally on the table, Tarn stood by drumming his fingers on his upper arms. Waking him up was becoming a problem.

The jumper cables hadn't worked, not even when applied directly to Overlord's exposed spark chamber. Neither had the stimulant upload, or more fuel, or repeated slaps about the face. Although that last one had mostly been done to make Tarn feel better. It was frustrating having Overlord at his mercy without Overlord being _aware_ of it. Wake up and let him gloat, fraggit!

He'd even pushed his mask up to lay a punishing kiss on the glitchborn traitorous pile of slag. No, he didn't seriously believe in the urban legend of a kiss waking corpses, but he'd figured if Primus had a sense of humor, it'd be a fitting time to show it off. Besides, he wasn't about to pass up the opportunity to taste Overlord's mouth. There was something deliciously forbidden about it. He'd had those lips almost everywhere else on his body, but never pressed to his own.

They were exaggerated, sculpted, and utterly pliant. They tasted coppery, slick with purged energon and hydraulic fluid, and Tarn had taken the time to explore. He'd bitten and licked at the inside where Overlord's teeth had left clotted cuts in the micro-plating. Worrying at one of the larger marks with his own teeth released a burst of repair slurry that Tarn had eagerly caught, sucking that pouty bottom lip into his mouth. Overlord hadn't stopped him. Overlord had been _unable_ to stop him.

It had been difficult to resist straddling Overlord, picking up his head, and taking that slack mouth with more than a kiss. Tarn had been far too tempted.

The point of this wasn't to make Overlord into his personal fragtoy, however. The point was interrogation, which wasn't going to happen so long as Overlord stayed in stasis lock. What else could Tarn do to wake a stubbornly unconscious mech?

Dropping his arms to his sides, Tarn stepped back. He needed a break. Fortunately, the acoustics in the brig weren't all that bad. The dank, dark atmosphere was mostly for intimidation, after all. Soon enough, the lush strains of the Empyrean Suite reverberated off the walls as Tarn paced, transformed, transformed back, and paced some more.

"Shut…that slag…off," a voice interrupted groggily.

"Shut up. It helps me think," Tarn retorted before doing a double-take at the table. "You're awake!"

Yes, thank you Captain Obvious. Overlord's upper lip twitched in a sneer, but he snorted, letting that convey his contempt.

Great! Fantastic, now he could get to work - wait. "Don't you dare," Tarn barked, storming over to glare down at the mangled mech. "Wake up!" Shaking Overlord roughly earned a sleepy grumble. How typical. Overlord slept through a direct shock to his spark chamber but woke up to tell him to shut off his music. This was giving him relationship déjà vu.

Metal smacked metal, and Overlord started, visibly surprised by the pain as Tarn's hand dug into the open metal of his shoulder. One optic brightened to glare up at him. "What do you want? I'm tired."

"Wake up." Tarn wrapped sparking wires around his fist. "You're not getting off that easy."

Overlord laughed. Tarn winced.

"You're not good enough to make it easy," the fragger agreed, smiling widely, and Tarn yanked a fistful of wires out of him. A long skein unraveled, flinging attached circuit boards in every direction as it came out. Energon spattered. Sparks landed dangerously close to the pink flecks, but Tarn didn't care about potential explosions. Overlord arched, straining against the restraints, but the sound from his vox box wasn't a scream. Tarn knew what that low grunt meant, even if the flicker of shock in red optics was new. Knowing Overlord, he'd burn alive wearing the same interested, vaguely aroused look of ' _Huh, is this pain? It's kind of hot.'_

He had no idea why he'd assumed waking Overlord up would make him any better to deal with. This was really just serving to remind him of their last date. This was exactly why they'd broken up. Well, not that they'd had much of a relationship to begin with. Fucking against the nearest available surface after a violent shouting match wasn't what Tarn considered a date or a relationship, not even if they'd done it with disturbing frequency.

Overlord was awake now, at least. "You've put more effort into it than usual," he murmured, lifting his head as much as he could against the straps. It let him see some of the damage, and damage reports were beginning to compile. The look on his face was almost impressed. "Where did you find me?"

Tarn grabbed the first tool laid out on the side table. "I'm asking the questions here. How did you survive?"

Light glittered off a wicked hook. Overlord eyed it as Tarn bent over him. "Survive what?" The dental pick slipped between his lips easily, but Overlord shut his teeth to bar it from getting in further. "Mmnnn?"

"I found you floating in this sector, heavily damaged, when you should be **dead** ," Tarn hissed. Tiny bits of metal curled up as he scraped the pick's tip along the inside of Overlord's lips. "I have your head in a trophy case. I read you your sentence and killed you **myself** , but here you are. How? Tell me!"

Overlord looked up at him thoughtfully. Tarn's hand hit him in the throat, slamming his head back onto the table when he tried to raise it, and it was as though that got through at last. Overlord finally registered what position he was in. His optics flicked around the brig. Shifting, he tested his wrists, then his ankles against the restraints. They were too tight and too strong to slip. His wounds bled sluggishly, self-repair clotting the tubes. Without his shoulder, he didn't have the leverage he needed to tear free. Too many wounds, too many restraints left him at Tarn's mercy, and the leader of the D.J.D. leaned over him with optics flaming orange-red in unhinged demand.

Canny optics sized him up. "Is Megatron alive?" Overlord said, intentionally opening his mouth for the sharp tool Tarn shoved in. The hook sank into the relatively tender sensor network at the base of his teeth, and hot air huffed as Overlord exhaled in a rush. Any louder, and it would have been a moan.

"It's not your concern," Tarn said curtly. Without looking, he selected another pick off the tray. This one had a bend in the hook, but the tip was sharp. "Tell me how you survived."

The hook made a crunching _slckt_ noise as it sank into Overlord's tongue. A deft flip of Tarn's wrist, and the hook pierced all the way through. Parts clicked audibly deep in the traitor's torso, and a mess of mixed fluids spat from open vents as fans began to spin. Overlord's tongue moved back in his mouth, pressing to the roof of his mouth, but the hook was set. Tarn pulled on the pick, and Overlord's tongue came out along with a breathy moan. Overlord likely would have stifled it if his mouth wasn't open.

Instead of struggling, he spoke around the tool. "I wasth waiting for you to find me, dear. The Autoboths are terrible hosths, but they're suth **kinky** jailorsth. They put me in suspenthion gear - "

"I saw."

Judging by Overlord's furrowed brow, he believed him. Which meant he believed Tarn had found and killed him. He promptly ignored all of that. "I liked ith."

"Of course you did." Suspended in midair, arms and legs locked apart, and even his head clamped into place. Tarn could believe Overlord was into that.

Overlord dimmed his optics and moaned as Tarn gave another vicious yank on the hook in his tongue. "I like thisth, too." The next pick probed past his extended tongue, poking painfully into seldom-stressed sensors, and Overlord squirmed against the restraints. His fans spun, rattling on their hubs. Damaged armor vibrated. The line between imprisonment by Autobots and Decepticons seemed quite thin. Pinpricks from needle-sharp tips during interrogation were popular this year.

Tarn gave a practiced twist to his wrist, scraping a deep cut through the roof of Overlord's mouth.

 _Crnch!_

"You drainclog."

 _Mnch crnch crnch._ Overlord had the decency to look apologetic, even if it was tinged by mockery. The pick handles wagged, disappearing into his mouth as he chewed. _Munch mncht crnch_.

Absurd as it was, Tarn's first reflex was to shoot a look at the brig door. Nickel was going to murder him.

Then he shook off the cold terror and seized the end of one of the picks. "Give that back. Don't eat someone's equipment." Fraggit, he sounded as though he was scolding the Pet, but was such a stupidly _petty_ thing for Overlord to do that he just couldn't help himself. "Those aren't mine! Slagging Pit, why would you even do that? Let - them - go!" He put his shoulders into it as he yanked.

Overlord's teeth sheared through the handle, and Tarn stumbled back as the end of the pick came off in his hand. "You - !"

Those ridiculous lips ticked up at the corners, but Overlord kept chewing. He seemed determine to eat all of the picks in his mouth, swallowing them in chunks. "Self-repair needs raw material," he said out of the corner of his mouth.

"Don't talk with your mouth full!" Tarn made a grab for the last handle.

Quicksilver fast, Overlord lunged up. His teeth snapped shut on the closest fingertip.

"That's my - let **go!** " Engine roaring, Tarn reared up, free hand cocked back in a fist. Optics blazing, he brought it down.

Overlord snarled around his finger, refusing to let go. One punch, two, and still he ground his teeth together, chewing through plating, wire, joint, and endoskeletal strut. A piston popped. Hydraulic fluid and energon bled in smeared drips down the sides of his face, pink and greasy black blending into the mess already covering him. One optic cracked as it took the brunt of a punch, but he looked up at Tarn in laughing defiance as he bit down harder.

The pain barely registered. Fury, on the other hand, roared through Tarn in time with his fuel pump, and his fist fell into the rhythm. Metal sang to the _beat_ , discordant clangs as his fist _fell_ , throwing Overlord's head from side to _side_ , one punch to the right and a _back_ hand to the left. A scream more rage than pain erupted from Tarn's throat as teeth met through his finger, and the shards of Overlord's optic went flying as Tarn brought his fist down with everything he had.

His own punch tore his finger free as it snapped Overlord's head to the side. His hand went the other direction, spitting electricity and energon.

" **Glitch!** "

His voice hit Overlord's spark like a whiplash, and the mech almost choked mid-swallow. "Hurrrrrrr…ahhh. Ah. I had forgotten that particular talent. The charm hasn't worn off, I see."

"I will make you," Tarn swore, still raging, "regret that."

"Will you?" Overlord met his optics. Slow and deliberate, he arched against the restraints in a long, sensuous writhe that made it clear what he felt about that threat. The shimmy to his hips was entirely unnecessary. "I don't recall regretting the last body part I bit off you, but you're welcome to try harder this time."

One would think the reminder would kill the fire burning in Tarn's spark, but logic had never been a part of their affair.

It was, however, a large part of what had the rest of the Justice Division clustered outside the brig's door. "Why don't we just interrupt?"

"He said he didn't want to be interrupted."

"He said that every time he went off to play doctor with that damn Autobint, too."

Good point, but they avoided meeting each other's optics while thinking about it.

"Look," Helex said, falling back on reason, "we'll worry about Pharma if he comes back from the dead and Tarn locks himself in a room together with him," that was a thought nobody wanted to have, because they all knew what Tarn would be doing with Pharma's resurrected corpse and that was a frankly gross thought to have about their commander, "but right now we're talking about Overlord. He was in bad shape, but we went in dosed on nuke and armed to the vents last time while he was fully restrained. I think we can all agree preparing for the worst is our best option. He's stronger than Tarn."

"He'll be restrained **and** wounded this time," Kaon argued.

"So? I don't think losing an arm will stop him."

Vos pointed out that emergency stasis lock was slightly more than just losing an arm.

Nickel nodded agreement. "Tarn's a big mech, I'm sure he can take care of himself. He's probably just doing a standard interrogation and doesn't want anybody worrying. You know how he gets about morale."

Tesarus studied the ceiling. Kaon coughed into his hand. Helex fiddled the fingers of all four hands together. None of them were in any hurry to inform the team medic that Tarn miiiiiiight have a bit of an addictive personality for things that were bad for him. Sort of how his love of transforming went beyond just, say, indulging in the occasional unnecessary shift. No, he transformed so compulsively that he had a voracious need for T-cogs. She knew about that, but Nickel hadn't been around long enough to pick up on how it was the much the same with the other things he enjoyed. Enjoyment became guilty pleasure, guilty pleasure became pressing need, and pressing need eventually became a sick addiction that had to be fed at any cost.

Tarn had needs like any other mech, but his needs tended to be kind of…warped. Pharma had been intelligent enough to take advantage of that before the rest of them had caught on to what he'd been up to. He'd fed Tarn's needs into an addiction. It had kept the Autobot alive longer than perhaps wise, but they had turned a blind optic to the affair. So long as Tarn got his fix back at home base, at least they knew it was nominally under control.

What Tesarus, Kaon, and Helex were worried about here and now was what happened if Tarn got a taste of an old addiction. Quitting was never easy. One moment of weakness could put him back at Square One. Worse, Overlord wasn't a taste. He was a four-course meal, the real deal.

Nickel and Vos, oblivious to their concerns, were discussing the situation inside as if the only thing to worry about was Overlord breaking loose. Neither of them had been around back when Tarn obsessed about Overlord for reasons other than murder. "We have a legitimate cause to interrupt, in case nobody's noticed. I don't care what he says, **I** wasn't ordered not to barge in, and **he stole my tools.** "

They shrank away from the tiny femme in their midst. "Errrr, not gonna defend him or anything," Tesarus said, "but we can't go against orders, and he'll toss you out the door if you break into an interrogation. It's not your place." Nickel was a Decepticon, but she wasn't technically one of the Justice Division as more than an auxiliary member. She didn't have the clearance to poke her meter into official D.J.D. business.

Also, they didn't want her to walk into the middle of their boss clanging Overlord. They couldn't _say_ that, but that's what three of them were thinking. From how Vos was standing, head cocked toward the door, he was starting to suspect why it'd be rude to walk in. The brig wasn't soundproof. The deep thrum of an engine vibrating the walls could be from anger, excitement, or something more personal. There was a faint sound of metal-on-metal, which could have several innocent, torture-related causes or a couple seriously filthy ones.

Then the inaudible murmur of voices on the other side of the door rose sharply, and whole group gasped as _pain_ rolled across their sparks.

"Gah!"

"Frag, oh frag." Kaon leaned heavily against the wall, one hand clenched on his chest. "Ow."

"Someday," Nickel said from flat on her back on the ground, "he's going to let me analyze how he does that."

Helex croaked a laugh. "Not likely. Anybody else think that might have been a bad sign?"

They traded an alarmed look, all wondering the same thing: had Tarn broken out The Voice because Overlord had gone for his throat?

Inside the room, unaware of his unit fretting out in the hall, Tarn had decided enough was enough. If Overlord wanted to play hardball, then Tarn was going to take advantage of him while it was hard. "Open," he snarled, bending down to press his mask to the side of Overlord's face.

His hand ran down the traitor's body, eager to tear open equipment covers. More than eager. He was disappointed to find Overlord's spike cover already retracted, but only until the thick girth of a spike filled his hand, smooth and ridged and ready. He remembered the textured feel of it quite vividly. His valve flexed around the memory of it.

"Eager, aren't you," he said into Overlord's audio. His voice dropped an octave, a bass purr lower than his engine. Overlord sucked in a breath as each separate syllable punished his spark. "You. Want. This."

"You're the one groping me like you haven't had spike in a thousand years. What's the matter, did you _gnnnk!_ " A full-body twitch wracked Overlord. Tarn whispered nonsense into his audio, consonants slicing into his spark. The agonizing twinge of fingers plucking the main feed from his spark chamber like an electro-bass' strings was a nice touch. Having his internal systems open to Tarn's hands was a new level of erotic torture.

Overlord promptly forgot what he'd been about to say and just moaned.

Tarn pumped his hand a few times, scrubbing his thumb on the patch of pressure sensors under the head, and Overlord's optic flared. "Go on. You were saying?"

" _Hnn_ nngh!"

"That's what I thought." Metal scraped quietly, the sound of Tarn squeezing his thighs together. A slippery wetness had sprung up in his valve, lubricant beading. Licking his lips, Tarn let his hatch retract. Cool air teased the bared sensors, making him shift from foot to foot, thighs closed in protection that coincidentally stimulated the rim. The flashes of pleasure felt like treason. Was he really going to do this?

Why shouldn't he? Megatron had made the List, but Megatron had betrayed the Cause. Overlord had been put on the List for betraying Megatron, not the Cause. And he had been executed already, which surely counted as payment for his sins. Even if that wasn't true, Tarn had every right to use a traitor however he wished. It might even help loosen Overlord's lips. Interrogation via fragging.

Bracing one hand on top of Overlord's spark chamber, Tarn used his grip on Overlord's spike to pull himself up onto the table. He _heard_ something snap. Fluid spurted, covering his thumb, but Overlord merely cried out in pleasure.

"Hmm? I do apologize," Tarn said conversationally as he flopped Overlord's spike from side to side, "but I seem to have broken you. A pity." Spikes weren't meant to be _that_ flexible. A pressure line had probably popped free, which would explain the fluid now oozing from it.

Overlord rolled his hips into the pain, encouraging Tarn to keep toying with him. "Not broken yet." He smiled. "You seem the resourceful sort. I'm sure you can use what's left."

Straddling him, Tarn chuckled in a dark purr he remembered did a number on Overlord's spark, and it didn't disappoint. Overlord flung his head back into the table, chest upthrust as far as he could manage against the restraints. The sight was titillating. "You're useful, I will admit, and I intend to thoroughly enjoy using - yes?"

Overlord frowned. Tarn's thumb rubbed absently along the tip of his spike, playing with it, but he otherwise paid no attention to the mech under him. His optics were fixed on a point in midair as he listened to Kaon. "I told Helex I didn't want to be disturbed." Pleasure and pain streaked in jagged bursts through an overstressed nervous system. Overlord clenched his teeth against a moan, but Tarn leaned forward to pat his jaw in a patronizing way. "We're on schedule. No, let it be. If it directs us into the nearest star again, take it offline and assume manual control." The hand massaging Overlord's spike wrenched it in a harsh circle, and the moan pushed out against Overlord's will. Tarn chuckled, then stopped short, hand abandoning Overlord's spike to suddenly clap over the external microphone on his arm communication array. "No, I - that wasn't directed at you. I'm busy at the moment. No, I'm fine. Why would you ask that?"

Evidently, Kaon had earned Overlord's everlasting ire. Tarn found the anger growing in the traitor's optic rather appealing. It dimed to a smoldering resentment the longer the call stretched on. He himself wasn't best pleased his crew couldn't follow simple instructions, but it was normal for Kaon to contact him with a question about their heading. Nothing odd there, although he had the feeling his subordinate was hedging around asking him something. Maybe the Pet had gnawed on another piece of memorabilia. The blasted thing had a taste for Cybertronian metal, and it liked to steal bits from the trophy room.

"Hmm? Mm. I'd prefer not to stop." Still listening, Tarn pushed off his heels enough to rub his valve the length of Overlord's spike. Ohh, that felt good. It wasn't about length, in Tarn's experience. It was about thickness. Give him a fat, thick, satisfying plug up his valve to fill him, and he could get off. Fans whirred loudly, and Overlord's vents sputtered fluids, but Tarn breathed slow and deep as he rocked. He remembered this. The length of it was fine, but yes. Yes, this.

The head dipped into his valve, dabbling in hot, wet lubricant, and Tarn looked down the length of his body to appreciate the contrast. The spike looked too big to fit. Overlord thrust up, trying to pop in, but stiff as his spike was, it had no stable base with the internal part snapped. It slid through slick lubricant off to the side into the groove where leg met pelvic span.

Overlord frustrated curse cut off. "Ahh."

Tarn immediately corrected that, however. This wasn't about Overlord's pleasure. That spike went exactly where he wanted it, and he wanted it against his valve. It pulsed to the erratic rhythm of Overlord's fuel pump. Tarn idly spanked it against the rim of his valve as he played with it, feeling Overlord's pulse jump and savoring the heavy smack of charge-swollen sensors under the head hitting the thin, sensitive pressure plates around his valve. It was a subtle pleasure, but one that kept him from screwing up the conversation with Kaon. The fact that it seemed to be driving Overlord mad was a bonus.

"No, I'm listening. Continue." The hand not holding the spike to his valve cupped over his external microphone pick-up. Overlord's colorful tirade didn't transmit. Kaon hesitated at the muffled noises, but Tarn wasn't paying full attention to what was being said by either mech by now. His optics unfocused as he circled his hips, pushing the head of Overlord's spike against his valve rim. Overlord groaned, holding still as if hoping good behavior could win where demanding had failed.

He could be trained when given the right incentive, it seemed. Tarn held the spike firmly at the base, bobbing up and down on the very tip where the channel leaked fluid with every frantic shudder. A minute or two of slick, slippery pumping, in and out, and Overlord jerked up, trying to catch him by surprise.

When the spike popped past his rim this time, Tarn let it. His vision blurred.

"I'm…listening." Dropping forward, Tarn braced his forearms on Overlord's chest. He lifted his hips, rolling them in a circle as he settled further down, and back up, and down, and a little further this time…

By the time Kaon finally hung up, Overlord's threats had gone past creative and into the art-and-crafts level. It was actually enough to give Tarn pause for a second. "You're going to use his head to make a what?"

"Stop talking and start fragging!" Overlord couldn't move much, strapped down like this. The most he could do was short, desperate thrusts.

Suiting Tarn just fine. "I would if you were worth the effort," he said, but his caustic tone didn't match the urgent jerk of his hips in time with Overlord's spike slamming home. His valve happily recalled the many, many times it had taken this particular spike, and the wet squelch of it tightly working toward overload filled the room.

"Oh? Then you wouldn't mind letting me prove my worth." Metal jangled as Overlord shook his arm, and he raised an optic ridge suggestively. "I only have one hand. Do you find me so threatening that you need to tie it down?" he challenged.

Nice try. Tarn wouldn't fall for such a blatant trick. "You're not in control here," he said, bearing down hard enough to pound dents in Overlord's spike casing. "And you won't. Be. In control. You will serve **me**. You'll do as **I** command. You. Are. **Mine!** " Overlord said something, voice too guttural to tell what, but Tarn held a long note of searing pain until the traitor gave up attempting to talk, overcome, and began thrusting in a frenzy of pain-spurred lust.

Much, much better. Overlord was a _toy_ like this, a weapon in Tarn's hand, and the thought nearly pushed him over the edge. Riding Overlord's bucking hips hard, he gritted his teeth and held on. Not yet, not yet! He could do this, he could tame Overlord where Megatron couldn't, he could - he could _use_ Overlord. He could use him on this mission. He could use him to convince Deathsaurus of his conviction to the Cause, about what they accomplish together as a faction instead of as Megatron's lapdogs!

Primus truly had intervened. Overlord hadn't been spared death to demoralize the Justice Division. He'd been brought to them as a _sign_.

Tarn cried out, sinking his fingers to the knuckle in damaged circuitboards up inside Overlord's torso, and the mech shook, trembling on the crest of a wave of masochistic pleasure that made his spike throb in Tarn's valve. "Yes. Yes!" It didn't matter which one of them said it. They were both thinking it, both overloading in a spray of fluids and sparking wires, charge crackling off their plating and starting a fire hot enough to melt metal as the puddles of energon on the table ignited. " **Yes!** "

Memory couldn't compare to the real thing. Tarn tensed, optics blazing bright as the flames, and ground down, toppling over the peak. His head tipped back, lips parting behind the mask in a last, "Yesssss."

The fire alarm went off at the same moment the door opened, and blissful release turned into a cold shower. Literally, as fire suppressant abruptly sprayed down from the ceiling. Despite the mask, it got into Tarn's mouth right as he inhaled.

"Tarn!"

Sated, Overlord rolled his head to the side. "Mmm?"

Tiny blue anger glared over the edge of the table at them. "I trust you have a good explanation for this."

Tarn, still coughing his ventilation system clear, made weak ' _calm down, calm down'_ gestures recognizable throughout the universe. They never actually calmed anyone down, but they were the natural reaction of someone about to get the fifth degree. "I can - I can explain - "

Nickel looked down as her tire hit a small bump on the floor. "What the…what is that?" She looked up, meter suddenly stopped. "Tarn, were you playing perverted 'facing games using my tools?"

"He certainly was," Overlord confirmed, smile lazy and content.

Tarn backhanded him. It wouldn't shut him up, but it turned his face away from Nickel's too-shrewd optics. "I certainly was not. I was interrogating a prisoner," he said with as much dignity as possible given that the prisoner's spike was still base-deep in him.

"Uh-huh, I guess that explains that." Nickel bent to pick up something, and Tarn winced when she held it up. A handle, no pick. "Now explain this."

"Um."

Nickel gave one of her eloquent hand gestures. It seemed an adequate introduction for today's lecture, which was entitled, ' _Do you know how much that costs, how hard it is to get replacements, and what did I tell you the last time you 'borrowed' one of my tools? I'll tell you what I told you. Ooo, I'm-a spell it out for you, gearhead!'_

The four mechs at the door exchanged a resigned look, nodded, and discreetly slid the door shut as the yelling started.

* * *

 **[* * * * *]**


End file.
